My Rant with ‘Glee’

“Glee” is a musical comedy-drama TV series on FOX. The show showcases members of a “small” high school’s Glee Club. The club does numerous performances a day, showcasing songs from classic oldies to new music from billboard’s top 100.

The show has gotten a lot of good publicity recently. News networks, social media, radio shows, and talks shows have endlessly discussed the success and positive reviews of the show. My friends have suggested I watch the show, I told myself I wasn’t going to watch it. I was completely reluctant watch the first season. For the past two weeks, however, I tuned in. I can’t find the reason why everyone is obsessed with the show.

Don’t get me wrong, I started watching the show with an open mind, but the show is just not good…at all.

THE BAD

Horrible, horrible lip-syncing. Some people can pull off lip-syncing (Madonna, Jennifer Hudson) while most people can’t (see Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson) and might as well add the cast of Glee to the list. Lip-syncing takes a lot of talent. Arguably more talent than it takes to actually sing. If you want to showcase “talent” in a TV cast, try to make sure the actors can do a decent lip-sync. Lea Michele, “Rachael Berry” is notably the worst on the show.

Autotune…really? On top of lip-syncing, the producers have to add autotune. Even though many of the songs they showcase are autotuned themselves, it’s still not acceptable. If one does a cover and/or a rendition, you probably shouldn’t use autotune. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so obvious. Aren’t you supposed to be a Glee club? Glee clubs don’t use autotune, they sing.

Basic plot line. High school is not so basic. So why do the writers and producers insist on stereotyping and simplifying teenagers’ high school career? Sure, there’s plenty of drama but the show doesn’t realistically depict the student life and their relationship with high school.

If you can’t play instruments…don’t. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with lip-syncing. If your number requires the usage of an instrument, please learn how to mimic playing the instrument. I can’t stand watching these actors poorly act on playing an instrument. We might as well supply the cast with an air guitar and have them attempt to play. It would look the same.

THE GOOD

Diversity and the tolerance for it. Bullying is a major problem in High School. The good thing the show does is it promotes diversity. The show has a cast and extras list of every demographic imaginable. For the most part, the show is tolerant of minorities, majorities and the in-between. There are many scenes that promote anti-bullying and tolerance as well as diversity in high schools.

Only in its second season, sources confirmed a renewal of “Glee” for its third season. The show is only going up in ratings and viewership is on a steep climb. It’s just sad to see such a bad show falsely depicting teenagers, high school life, and the Glee club with such a tremendous following.